ICT news

• Linus Torvalds on AI, Junk Patches, Humans, and Godzilla

  12-07-2026 22:55 via linux.slashdot.org
  Linus Torvalds once said LLMs might bring a 10X increase to programmer productivity. But speaking at Open Source Summit India 2026, he now says that number was "not scientific,"
  reports ZDNet. "That was pulled out of my ass number, obviously."
  Today, he continued, "we're at the point where hopefully it creates more productivity than it takes away," but "we certainly saw more junk being generated by LLMs than we saw useful code up until the like early this year.... it can actually be a huge drain
  
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• Robot 'Decapitated' in World's First-Ever Humanoid UFC Fight

  19-07-2026 19:49 via hardware.slashdot.org
  "A humanoid robot lost its head," reports Newsweek, "during the world's first free-combat tournament for full-sized humanoid robots."
  The Ultimate Robot Knock-out Legend competition began Thursday in Shenzhen, China, according to the article, with local robotics company EngineAI providing $40,000 of their "T800" robots (yes, named after The Terminator) to 32 participating teams from around the world:A video shared of the combat on YouTube by local news outlet Shenzhen Story, showed that even aft
  
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• Windows 10 Still Being Used, Often Unpatched and Insecure

  19-07-2026 18:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  Windows 10 still runs on 16.9% of the Windows devices monitored by asset-tracking service Lansweeper. That's more than one in six, The Register points out.
  A year ago, the operating system accounted for about half of the machines in its dataset, falling to the low-to-mid 40% range by the time Microsoft ended standard support. The decline continued after that, reaching 18.6% in June, but Lansweeper says migration has now slowed to a crawl... Small and medium-sized businesses are particularly expo
  
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• Aptera Announces US-Wide Repair Network for Its Upcoming Solar Electric Car

  19-07-2026 17:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  Solar car maker Aptera has "officially announced a repair network partnership which will give owners of its upcoming solar electric car access to thousands of repair shops nationwide," reports Electrek:We recently got a chance to drive the Aptera solar EV and tour the company's factory, and came away both impressed at the progress that has been made, but cognizant of the long road ahead for the company. One question that often gets raised in reference to EV startups is how owners get service on
  
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• Aptera Announces Nationwide Repair Network For Its Upcoming Solar Electric Car

  19-07-2026 17:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  Solar car maker Aptera has "officially announced a repair network partnership which will give owners of its upcoming solar electric car access to thousands of repair shops nationwide," reports Electrek:We recently got a chance to drive the Aptera solar EV and tour the company's factory, and came away both impressed at the progress that has been made, but cognizant of the long road ahead for the company. One question that often gets raised in reference to EV startups is how owners get service on
  
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• Former Richard Stallman Colleague Now Argues for Open AI Models Too

  19-07-2026 16:34 via news.slashdot.org
  Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes:
  Recalling his initial resistance to free and open software, billionaire computer scientist David Siegel argues vigorously in FORTUNE that the stakes are too high to let AI become increasingly closed. "In the 1980s, I had the chance to spend several years arguing about free and open software, what we now call open source, with the founder of the movement, Richard Stallman. My office at the MIT AI Lab was next door to his. Stallman's position was that the s
  
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• Are There Cybersecurity Risks in Over-the-Air Tech Used in Autos?

  19-07-2026 13:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  CNBC reports:
  The automotive industry's increasing use of over-the-air technology to update vehicle systems makes it more susceptible to cyberattacks, analysts say, urging more intervention in the sector... Its use represents "a unique national security concern," Gabriel Lim, senior analyst at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, told CNBC. "Aside from data privacy concerns, the potential of a foreign actor sabotaging the controls of a moving vehicle is a possibility t
  
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• New Study Links Teen Boys' ADHD Symptoms To Addictive Social Media Use

  19-07-2026 09:34 via science.slashdot.org
  A new study by researchers at the University of California at San Francisco "adds to growing research linking increased social media use to detrimental effects on attention, memory and cognition," reports the Washington Post:The study followed more than 11,000 U.S. adolescents over a period of five years, with participants first asked about their own social media use at the average age of 12, and surveyed annually through the average age of 16. Researchers found that increases in addictive socia
  
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• 'Grok Build' Coding Tool Open Sourced This Week, Promises to Respect Zero Data Retention

  19-07-2026 05:34 via news.slashdot.org
  Elon Musk confirmed SpaceX has open sourced the Grok Build CLI this week, reports The Register, "just days after researchers caught the AI tool scooping up users' entire repositories and uploading them to company-controlled cloud storage."
  That discovery had "gathered so much negative attention that Elon Musk felt compelled to issue a public statement alongside SpaceX, and its technical staff, promising to delete all data that Grok Build has ever stored and give users more choice over how their
  
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• OpenAI Acknowledges GPT-5.6 May Accidentally Delete Files, Calls It 'Honest Mistake'

  19-07-2026 03:34 via developers.slashdot.org
  "OpenAI has finally confirmed reports that its latest family of large language models can accidentally delete files," reports InfoWorld, "while stressing that such incidents are rare and should be viewed as 'honest mistakes.'"Reports of the flagship LLMs deleting files emerged shortly after the company launched them earlier this month, with investor Matt Shumer taking to X to report that GPT-5.6-Sol had "just accidentally deleted almost all" of his Mac's files. Just days later, software engineer
  
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• France Orders ISPs to Block Access to Polymarket

  19-07-2026 02:17 via yro.slashdot.org
  France's regulatory authority for licensed gambling/betting games "announced this week that it ordered ISPs to block access to Polymarket," reports Engadget. Anyone caught advertising an unauthorized betting site "could be fined up to 100,000 euros, or around $114,000." (The article notes this follows a previous regulatory action from November placing a geoblock on financial transactions from French residents on Polymarket's site.)In May Spain blocked access to Polymarket and Kalshi while it lau
  
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• How Microsoft's 'Little Workaround' Created a Major Threat to America's Defense Department

  19-07-2026 01:17 via yro.slashdot.org
  This week Slashdot reader joshuark found the story of exactly how in 2025 ProPublica reporter Renee Dudley confirmed Microsoft was running tech support for the U.S. Defense Department through China, America's biggest cybersecurity adversary — and how that investigation ultimately changed U.S. government policy.
  The reporter first found an ad offering $18 to $28 to hire Americans as "digital escorts" for China-based tech support, then just searched LinkedIn for people who apparently had ans
  
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• Next UK Prime Minister Drops Digital ID Scheme

  19-07-2026 00:17 via news.slashdot.org
  Reuters reports:
  Incoming British prime minister Andy Burnham will scrap the government's troubled plans for a digital ID scheme when he enters office on Monday, a spokesperson for the new Labour Party leader said. Resources devoted to the scheme, deemed a "fiasco" by a cross-party committee of lawmakers, will be redirected to Burnham's priorities, the spokesperson said...
  "All the time and resource that was going to be spent on a national ID scheme will go instead to where it's most needed, suc
  
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• Gen Z and Millennials are Buying CDs - Though Half Don't Have CD Players

  18-07-2026 21:50 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  "Approximately half of Gen Z and millennials who have purchased a CD do not own a CD player," according to midyear sales statistics from entertainment data company Luminate. It's driven in part by "collection building", according to their report [PDF]:The CD has been recontextualized from a functional audio format into an
  affordable collectible. This behavior underscores that for younger generations, the act of buying
  physical music is as much about aesthetic ownership and direct financial suppo
  
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• NextBSD Returns to Port Apple Source Onto FreeBSD

  18-07-2026 20:46 via bsd.slashdot.org
  "One of the most interesting BSD variants of the 2010s, NextBSD, has come back to life under new management," reports The Register:
  Aside from the homepage, there's a GitHub repository — but beware, this is separate from the old one, whose repo is still there although the most recent changes were seven years ago. The new project also has a project history giving credit where it's due. The main man behind the revival is Joe Maloney, known on GitHub as pkgdemon. In case his name rings a bell
  
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• CNBC's Jim Cramer Says He Needs 'Cold Hard' Proof AI Is Paying Off

  18-07-2026 19:34 via slashdot.org
  In a sign of our times, CNBC's Jim Cramer "said Wednesday that it's time for companies to prove artificial intelligence is paying off," reports CNBC:
  "I need cold hard return facts," the "Mad Money" host said. "Or, I, too, will grow more skeptical than I am now...." While Cramer said he remains optimistic about the long-term opportunity, he argued the market needs more evidence that those investments are translating into measurable financial returns for customers. Cramer said one of his biggest
  
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• Long After Pluto Fly-By, NASA's New Horizon's Probe Wakes Up Again, Starts Doing New Science

  18-07-2026 18:34 via science.slashdot.org
  Launched in 2006, NASA's New Horizons probe flew by the planet Pluto in 2015. But this week it "awakened from its longest sleep ever," reports CNN.It's now 5.9 billion miles (9.5 billion kilometers) from Earth...
  NASA's New Horizons spacecraft went into a planned hibernation mode on August 7, 2025, and woke up on June 23 using commands stored on its main computer. The mission's flight controllers at the Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, confirmed that New
  
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• Union Fights Microsoft Over Layoffs at Game Studios

  18-07-2026 17:34 via games.slashdot.org
  Thursday the union that helped organize thousands of workers across numerous Microsoft-owned video game studios filed unfair labor complaints against Microsoft over the layoffs of 1,600 employees. The gaming news site Aftermath says the complaints allege unlawful action:
  "Xbox management is required to bargain with the union over the decision of layoffs prior to implementing them during the status quo period, and we are pursuing every available avenue to protect our members," a Communications Wo
  
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• The 'Death of the Stick Shift' is Almost Here for Americans

  18-07-2026 16:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  Last year just 0.6% of new vehicles made for U.S. customers were stick shifts, reports the Washington Post, citing preliminary government data.
  "That's a precipitous drop from the 34.6 percent of vehicles with manual transmissions produced in 1980."
  [T]he stick shift's popularity hit multiple new lows in recent years, with no signs of a turnaround, thanks to new technologies and a rapidly changing marketplace. Buyers and automakers increasingly have turned to the sophisticated automatic drivetra
  
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• Google-Backed Satellites For Wildfire Detection Launch As Smoke Chokes US, Canada

  18-07-2026 13:00 via news.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: As smoke from hundreds of burning wildfires spread across Canada and the United States, the first three operational satellites in the Google-backed FireSat program successfully launched into orbit. The satellites will begin providing wildfire detection capable of spotting even small fires in the United States, Australia, and Europe before the end of the year. The launch of the microsatellites aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg S
  
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• Alien World Chemistry Found Inside Meteorite That Struck New Jersey Home

  18-07-2026 09:00 via science.slashdot.org
  Researchers say a meteorite that crashed through the roof of a Hillsborough, New Jersey, home in 2024 contains unusually pristine evidence of salty fluids and organic chemistry from near the surface of a primitive asteroid. "A forensic study of the fragments revealed that they contained preserved bits from near the surface of a primitive asteroid, where it experienced concentrated salty fluids -- a process not previously known from this type of protoplanet world," said lead author and meteor ast
  
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• Australia To Put Environmental Brakes On AI Data Centers

  18-07-2026 05:30 via slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: Australia will require large data centers powering artificial intelligence to generate as much power as they consume, and ensure that creative professionals retain control over work that may be used to train A.I. systems, as the government sets up guardrails over the rapidly growing industry. The announcements on Wednesday in a speech by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese came as Australia draws significant interest from A.I. companies be
  
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• Steve Wozniak's Foundation Partners With Realbotix To Build AI Teacherbot

  18-07-2026 01:00 via hardware.slashdot.org
  "Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak's Woz Ed foundation is partnering with Realbotix, best known for their RealDoll-branded artificial companions, to deploy AI-powered robotic tutors in classrooms," writes Slashdot reader Hentes. "The doll will serve as a sort of artificial teaching assistant, helping students who get stuck or generating lessons. Students will be assigned an ID code, allowing the robot to provide personalized mentoring." NYS Focus reports: "This deployment in a working school distri
  
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• Xi Vows to Make AI for All in Debut at China's Top Tech Summit

  18-07-2026 00:00 via slashdot.org
  Xi Jinping used his first appearance at China's World AI Conference to promote a vision of low-cost, broadly accessible AI and call for international cooperation rather than technological rivalry. "AI development should not be a solo performance by a single country, but a symphony of international cooperation," he said. Bloomberg reports: His presence at the gathering, attended by scores of tech and government leaders, conveys a potent signal of China's ambitions to dominate a technological sphe
  
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• Billing Software Error Sends Billion-Dollar AWS Estimates

  17-07-2026 23:00 via news.slashdot.org
  AWS says a billing software bug caused some customers to see wildly inflated estimated charges, including reports of accounts showing bills in the billions or even trillions of dollars. The Register reports: An open issue on the AWS Health Dashboard (archived copy at the time of writing) popped up at 1:33 am Pacific time on Friday informing users that Cost Explorer was "reflecting inaccurate estimated billing data." As of writing, the issue is still unresolved despite AWS trying several differen
  
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• Linus Torvalds To Critics of AI Coding On Linux: 'Fork It. Or Just Walk Away.'

  17-07-2026 22:00 via linux.slashdot.org
  Linus Torvalds says the Linux kernel will not ban AI-assisted coding tools, and if anti-AI absolutists have a problem with that, they can "fork it" or "walk away." An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Writing in a lengthy post on the Linux kernel mailing list this week, Torvalds said that "Linux is not one of those anti-AI projects, and if somebody has issues with that, they can do the open-source thing and fork it. Or just walk away." The statement came amid a lengthy thread a
  
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• China Just Erased America's AI Lead

  17-07-2026 21:00 via slashdot.org
  Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from Axios: Kimi K3, a massive new model by Beijing-based Moonshot AI, threatens the foundations of Americas AI boom. Its release Thursday dazzled developers, jolted Silicon Valley and reset the AI race overnight. Kimi immediately vaulted into the top tier of global AI, beating Anthropic's Fable 5 and OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol in front-end coding tests by AI evaluator Arena.In Arenas broader text ranking, Kimi finished ahead of Anthropics Opus 4.8 -- t
  
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• FBI Arrests Man Accused of Using Steam Games To Drain Victims' Crypto Wallets

  17-07-2026 20:00 via games.slashdot.org
  The FBI arrested a Florida man accused of uploading fake Steam games containing malware that stole passwords, data, and cryptocurrency wallet credentials from victims. Prosecutors say the scheme infected about 8,000 people, compromised roughly 80 crypto wallets, and stole at least $220,000 through games that appeared legitimate but secretly carried malware. TechCrunch reports: On Tuesday, the FBI arrested Zyaire Wilkins, a 21-year-old Florida resident and student. On Wednesday, prosecutors accus
  
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• Meta In Talks To Lease Computing Power To Anthropic In Potential $10 Billion Deal

  17-07-2026 19:33 via hardware.slashdot.org
  Anthropic is reportedly in very early talks to lease computing power from Meta in a potential deal worth around $10 billion. The discussions follow Anthropic's recent compute deal with SpaceX and come as Meta explores selling excess AI capacity as part of a broader push to turn its massive infrastructure spending into a cloud business. CNBC reports: Access to enough AI chips remains a challenge for firms like Anthropic, which places usage limits on its most advanced models like Fable. [...] Meta
  
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• Apple Sends Legal Letters To Dozens of OpenAI Employees

  17-07-2026 18:00 via apple.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from MacRumors: Apple has reportedly sent legal letters to dozens of former Apple employees now working at OpenAI, telling them to preserve potentially relevant documents and communications as it continues to pursue its trade secret lawsuit against the AI company. The Financial Times (paywalled) reports that Apple has targeted around 40 former employees with legal preservation letters, acting on its belief that the alleged misappropriation of confidential info
  
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